1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to herbal medicinal compositions and extracts thereof for inhibiting growth of cancer cells and, more particularly, to herbal medicinal compositions and extracts thereof for inhibiting growth of lung cancer cells.
2. Description of Related Art
Cancers have been one of ten leading causes of death in the last continuous 27 years. The main cause of cancer is abnormality of cells which undergo self-division continuously to form more and more abnormal cells, i.e., cancers.
In common tumor cells, some cancer cells have characteristics of stem cells. Although such cancer cells are in a small number, they can undergo cell division and differentiation continuously, similar to stem cells, and thus are so called “cancer stem cells”. Since cancer stem cells have extremely high drug resistance, it is difficult for chemotherapeutic agents of modern (Western) medicine to exterminate them. Accordingly, it is often heard that cancer recurrence happens in many patients post-chemotherapy. In addition, standard therapies currently known in biomedical science are still unable to kill such cancer stem cells.
Furthermore, surgical operations, radiotherapies, chemotherapies, hormone therapies, biological therapies, and so on in modern medical science may incur strongly unfavorable side effects to patients. Therefore, it is a significant breakthrough if a cancer can be treated by a therapy which is relatively gentle and able to inhibit development of cancer stem cells.
Currently, people believe that the use of Chinese herbal medicine to treat patients is both a gentle therapy and highly acceptable in commerce. Hence, if a developed herbal medicinal composition is evidenced to inhibit cancer cells or block division of cancer stem cells, it will be considerably helpful to the treatment of cancers.